


Up to Speed

by Mizmak



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Declarations Of Love, Driving Lesson, First Kiss, Happy Ending, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-14
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:27:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24182089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mizmak/pseuds/Mizmak
Summary: Crowley thought he was just giving Aziraphale a driving lesson, but his friend had another idea in mind.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 87





	Up to Speed

Crowley sat in his stalled Bentley near the middle of the abandoned car park outside Lower Pipping-on-Ware, rubbing a hand across his face.

“All right.” He took a deep breath. “Let’s go over this again. First, you press down the clutch pedal. Then you put it in the proper gear. And then you let out the clutch while pressing the gas pedal.”

Aziraphale sat in the driver’s seat, tensely grasping the steering wheel with both hands even though the engine was not running because he’d managed to kill it for the tenth time in ten tries to shift from first to second. “Oh, dear. I did so think that I got it right that time.”

“Well, at least you got it into first gear.” It wasn’t much, but he supposed he ought to give his friend a little praise and encouragement or he’d never learn to drive at all. 

“I did!” Aziraphale beamed at him. But then he pouted. “It’s such a pity I can’t get out of it again.”

“Imagine two weights on a fulcrum. One end goes up while the other goes down, in harmony. Imagine the clutch and the gas pedals are each one end of that. One goes in while the other goes out, together, in harmony. Got it?”

“Yes, that’s quite helpful.”

“Right. Try again, Angel.”

“Yes, um, let’s see—“ 

“It’s best if you take one of your hands off the wheel.” Honestly. How did he expect to shift otherwise? “Press in the clutch, turn the key--“

“What? Oh, jolly good. Turn the car on. Right.”

Aziraphale got the Bentley’s engine rumbling again, managed to get into first gear, and the car slowly rolled forward across the empty lot at a pace that would be outdistanced by a tortoise. “Look! It’s moving!”

Now came the part where he’d have to get into second gear, the part he had messed up ten times in a row. Crowley bit his lower lip. His beautiful Bentley. What had he been thinking? “Okay, listen carefully. Seesaw the clutch and the gas pedals as you shift into second gear. _Gently_.”

The eleventh time apparently was the charm, for Aziraphale actually got the car into second without killing the engine. 

This, however, posed a new problem that Crowley should have foreseen. They were now moving faster – not terribly fast, true, but that chain-link fence at the end of the parking area was drawing rather closer than he wanted it to.

“Um, do you remember what I told you about braking to a full stop?” he asked as a nervous shiver flew up his spine.

“Oh, dear. I have to use two pedals for that, yes?”

Too close, they were getting too close— 

“Yes, you need to press in the clutch so you can put it in neutral before you hit the—“

_Ker-_ chunk _chunk_ _fwoomp._

The car died as Aziraphale hit the brakes alone, coming to a full stop while still in second gear. But at least they were stopped a good foot from the fence.

“I’m so sorry, my dear. Perhaps we’ve done enough for one day?”

_Perhaps I should hire a car with an automatic transmission_. “Okay, Angel. Enough. Get out.”

They traded places, and as soon as Crowley got settled in the driver’s seat, he patted the dashboard. “There, there. It’s all right. Everything’s going to be fine now.”

“Did you just talk to your car?”

“Er…um, yeah?” 

“I see.”

Crowley started up his beloved Bentley, and drove smoothly out of the car park. “People talk to their cars. It’s perfectly normal.”

Aziraphale made a little dismissive murmur. “It’s not an animate object.”

“Don’t say that out loud!” As he pulled onto the motorway, Crowley patted the dash again. “Don’t listen to him.” He glanced at his dear, misguided friend. “Are you _sure_ you want to learn how to drive?”

“Well, it _is_ a bit more complex than I imagined.”

Definitely needed to hire a car with an automatic transmission next time. Though he hated the idea—he’d tried one once, and it just wasn’t as much _fun_. “And tell me _why_ you want to learn how to drive?”

When Aziraphale had suggested this little adventure in frustration, Crowley had been so delighted at the prospect that he’d neglected to ask the reason. Now that he knew how much work it would take, and how nuts it would make him, there had better be a damned good reason or driving lesson number two was never going to happen.

“Um…it’s because…hm. That is…well, it’s a handy skill to have, isn’t it?”

That sounded a tad nervous, not to mention evasive. “Yup. Welcome to the twenty-first century, Angel. Or maybe just the twentieth. What’s next—a real computer? A real phone? A _television set?”_

“Really, it is not necessary to employ sarcasm.”

“Want me to take you shopping for a pair of skinny jeans?” Crowley grinned at the image of Aziraphale walking about in tight trousers. Hm. Not a bad idea at all. 

“If you are going to make fun of my efforts to move ahead with the times, then we have nothing more to discuss.”

Now he was pouting. Crowley sighed. “Sorry. You threw me for a loop, that’s all. Do you honestly want to leave the nineteenth century behind? Thought you liked it there. It suits you.”

His companion stayed quiet for a while, then mumbled something he didn’t quite catch.

“What was that?”

Aziraphale coughed. “I said, I thought it might be nice if I tried to move a little…er…faster.” He paused. “On occasion. Sometimes. Perhaps.”

Crowley frowned, trying to place those words into context. _Move faster?_ He couldn’t possibly be referring all the way back to—to _that night_ , could he?

“Uh, yeah. Could be nice.” Then again, maybe Aziraphale simply meant literally moving faster, as in learning to drive a car? What the hell did he say now—somehow he felt he needed to tread very carefully here.

“Yes,” Aziraphale said. “That’s what I thought. That perhaps you could teach me how to, well, catch up to—to the modern age a little more.”

Was that all? Nothing more than a small shift away from the past…or was it something else entirely? 

“Yeah, I guess so. Wouldn’t be a bad thing, I guess. Get you up to speed, so to speak.” There, that seemed non-specific enough.

“Right. Precisely.”

They had reached the outskirts of London. Crowley drove past the M25 and got safely into the city. He headed towards Soho and the bookshop. 

The traffic was bad, as usual, and as he struggled to find a clear way through it, Crowley said, “Welcome to the modern age.” Not that the nineteenth century would have been an improvement, with the addition of horse droppings to the crowded streets.

Every age had its annoyances.

He finally pulled up in front of the bookshop. It was late afternoon, and a light rain started to fall. A glass of wine wouldn’t come amiss. 

“Come inside,” Aziraphale said. “I believe there are still some bottles of Chauteauneuf du Pape lying about.”

“Always a favorite.”

They settled in to an old familiar routine—Aziraphale in his favorite chair, Crowley lazily claiming the sofa, and one bottle led to another, and another as the rain pattered against the windows, and as the afternoon drifted into evening.

Despite his valiant efforts to become blissfully inebriated, Crowley couldn’t help notice reality, in the form of harder and more insistent rain, along with a fierce wind that rattled the panes. _Blast_.

It wasn’t that he hated driving in the rain—he could handle it easily, and his flat wasn’t that far away. It was _people_ who made driving in the rain more irritating than it needed to be. You would think that anyone living in London, of all places, would know how to drive when it rained but it was astonishing how few of them managed to behave as if they’d never seen wet stuff falling from the skies before.

Humans, he theorized, dedicated far too much of their brains to pointless meanderings when they got behind the wheel of their cars— _What should I pick up for supper? Why did my partner cut off our last phone call? What’s on the telly tonight?_ But when it rained, suddenly they had to _pay attention_ to something else and couldn’t find room in their cluttered heads for the weather, and then they _panicked_ and did stupid things.

“Hey, Angel,” he said as he opened the fifth—or was it the sixth—bottle. “Can I sleep on your sofa tonight?” He waved the bottle in the general direction of the rain-lashed windows. “Bugger of a storm out there.”

“Hm? Oh, my. So it is.” Aziraphale stretched forward, holding his glass out for refilling. “Certainly, my dear. Use the sofa.” Then he smiled softly, shyly. “Or take the bed upstairs. Even better.”

Crowley nearly spilled the wine, but recovered, albeit clumsily. “Er.” He’d never been offered the bed before. “Yeah?”

“Perfectly good bed. Hardly ever used.”

Well, that should be all right, then. No dangers there, right? Aziraphale would just stay up all night, as he usually did. “Fine.”

“Good.”

“Yup.”

“Tickety-boo,” Aziraphale added.

_Tickety-boo?_ “Are you drunk already? It’s only four…or was it five…how many bottles have we had?”

Aziraphale stifled a hiccup. “Five. I think. Maybe. Whatever.”

_Whatever?_ Crowley shook his head. He stared at the glass of wine in his hand. Was this one of the same bottles they’d drunk out of eleven years ago, when he’d concocted that whole raising-the-Antichrist plan? They usually did sober up after a night of bingeing, and the bottles filled up again, and it was entirely possible that there would always be 1920s vintages of Chauteauneuf du Pape in the bookshop because they were the _same_ bottles, emptied and miraculously refilled over and over and over again.

“Ngk,” he said at the thought. “Erk.”

“Hm? What was that, my dear?”

“I want some new wine.”

“Not following you.” Aziraphale hiccupped again.

Crowley leaned forward, trying to focus his serpentine gaze on his friend, having tossed his sunglasses aside hours ago. “ _New_. _Wine._ ” He pointed an unsteady finger at the bottles on the coffee table. “I think we’ve been drinking and re-drinking the same stuff for _years_. It’s disgush—disguts—it’s bloody awful!”

“Oh?” Aziraphale leaned forward as well, and stared at the bottles. “Oh. I see your point.” He made a face. “ _Yuck._ ”

“I’m going to sober up. Mostly. And then I’m going to toss every one of these bottles into another bloody dimension.”

He wasn’t sure if he could actually do that, but if he couldn’t, there was always the option of pouring the contents down the sink. Crowley concentrated, frowning deeply, as he used a demonic miracle to rid his body of wine that had been regurgitated countless times. _Yuck, indeed_.

Aziraphale did the same. As the bottles refilled, he shook his head. “Nasty.”

“Maybe we can buy some wine from the twenty-first century,” Crowley suggested.

“I agree.” Aziraphale shuddered. “Excellent plan. Move forward.”

“Absolutely. Got to keep moving on.”

_Yes_. Unpleasant decade anyway, the 1920s. It _should_ have been a grand time, what with all those bright young things partying away after the great war ended, what with the loosening of morals, the jazz, the new art, all that love of the _modern_.

But Crowley had not been on speaking terms with Aziraphale then, nor had been for decades, and he had been more than happy to move on. 

“Times change,” he said, not entirely sure what he meant, just tossing the thought out there. _What an odd day this had been._

As if something important hung in the air between them, some cue that he’d missed, or a nuance that slipped right by him. Wouldn’t be the first time. Crowley lived on the surface, for the most part, and he tended to slip quickly from one moment to the next without pausing to reflect. He knew that his emotions could swerve from one extreme to the other like a careening car, and minutes after racing into anger, he could screech to a halt, settle instantly into a steady pace, and not long after, utterly forget that he’d ever been upset at all.

So he tended to miss things under that surface, at times. And right now, Aziraphale was looking at him with a strange expression, one that Crowley couldn’t quite read. Sort of wistful, or maybe hopeful? Or was he merely confused?

The antique clock in the bookshop struck midnight. Crowley yawned, and stretched out his arms. Really, he ought to stay on the sofa, but the offer of a bed sounded enticing. And the rain still poured down.

“Change,” Aziraphale said quietly.

“Hm? What was that?”

“You said, _times change_. Things move forward. We ought to keep moving on.”

“Yeah…um. Talking about the blasted wine, Angel.”

At least, that’s what he’d thought he’d been talking about.

“You said, I ought to get up to speed.”

“Uh…talking about the car?”

“Were you?”

Crowley looked down at his hands. Why were they trembling? “What were _you_ talking about?”

Aziraphale sighed. “Not entirely certain. Never done this before.”

Now he felt thoroughly in the dark. “Done what before?”

“We were in the car today. Yes? Yes. And you asked what I wanted, or rather, why I wanted to drive, and at first it didn’t come easily, the truth. But I tried to get it out there, that it was time for me to move faster. I was hoping that was a hint. But I suppose it isn’t natural for me to do this sort of thing, I’m afraid, or perhaps it was all too long ago, and you forgot all about it, because you _do_ move too fast to hold on to the past.”

The trembling in Crowley’s hands now spread upward, and turned into a not entirely unpleasant tingling along his spine. 

No, he didn’t care to hold on to what was gone. He liked to live in the present, to let go of what no longer mattered—or what he didn’t _want_ to matter, to think about overmuch, to allow to fester inside. 

Sometimes even the closest one of all could hurt him, and Crowley felt the heartache deeply, yet he fended it off as best he could, always moving forward, never _giving in_ to the pain—because he didn’t want to be ruled by anything or anyone. Not in Heaven, not in Hell, and not on Earth.

Or so he had believed. So he had told himself, over and over. _I don’t need you_. 

He was absolutely, completely, utterly in control and he would absolutely push against anything or anyone that threatened his freedom ever again. So he had told himself, over and over.

_You can hurt me, and I’ll just brush it off, because I don’t need you._

He could always move on, unaffected. He moved on, ever in present tense mode. He moved forward, ever forward, never looking back on what was gone because the past was dead and the present was alive and new, and the heartache lived solely in the past, where old pains couldn’t hurt if they were forgotten.

_”You go too fast for me,”_ Aziraphale said into the ringing silence of Crowley’s thoughts.

The tingling slowly ebbed away. Of course, everything he had believed about himself was absolutely, completely, utterly wrong.

He looked at Aziraphale. “Too slow, Angel. Got it backwards, all this time.”

“Slow?” Aziraphale raised his eyebrows. “You?”

Crowley nodded. “I remember. I didn’t forget. _Anywhere you want to go_. Right? Yeah. And I just moved on, like always, as if nothing had happened. Been doing that for thousands of years. Telling myself it didn’t matter. Just keep living in the moment, and it won’t matter. But I wasn’t moving at all, Angel. I’ve been stuck in one place for thousands of years.”

_Don’t hold on to what’s past. It can’t be changed_.

Aziraphale pushed up out of his chair, and came round to the sofa, where he sat down. “Your legs are in the way, dear.”

“Sorry.” Crowley shifted, allowing his friend to move in closer.

“Now, then. Tell me how you’ve been stuck all this time, please.”

_How to explain the world…his world. His life, and the endless need to escape the world as he knew it, and the running away from what he wanted but could not have, and how to explain the way he stayed sane by telling himself a lie over and over and over._

_How to explain how he spent all those years believing he was moving onward when all he was really doing was running in place._

“In the beginning,” he said with a smile, “there was a garden—“

“Hush.” Aziraphale lay a hand on his arm. “Try again.”

Crowley took a deep breath. “Right. And here I thought this day was just about learning to drive.”

“No. It wasn’t.” Aziraphale caressed his arm. “Go on, then.”

He felt a slight hitch in his voice. “Never done this before.”

“Of course you haven’t.”

“Right. Yes. Well. You see, I met an angel on the wall of Eden. And then I saw him again, and then again, and then a million times more. Supposed to be an enemy, but _my_ enemies were in Heaven and Hell, not on Earth. So that made him a sort of a friend. Not meant to be. Could never happen. Wouldn’t last, couldn’t possibly last. The thing is, every time we met, the world turned brighter, and every time we parted, the days grew dark again. So I had a choice to make. Either I could hold on to the past, to the memory of the light—or I could push it away as far as I possibly could, and always move on, go as fast as I could to get through the days, and just live in the darkness where I belonged, with what I knew was real. Because the light wasn’t real—it couldn’t be. Not for _me_.”

His voice caught then, as he felt the tears come, unwanted. “Damn it, Angel. Look what you’ve done.”

Aziraphale brushed the tears from his cheeks. “So sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

“You made me talk about _feelings_.”

“I suppose I did. What if I promise not to do it again, would that be better?”

Crowley nodded. “Yes, please.” Past, present, future—to hell with it. Slow, fast, moving on or staying still—damnation and bollocks. What did it matter now—what did _anything_ matter now, except to be free from it all. Which he was, which they both were. 

They could drive as fast as they liked now, anywhere they wanted to go. Time to let the old lies die.

Aziraphale had moved his hand from Crowley’s cheek to his hair, which he was gently stroking. “I didn’t actually want to learn how to drive.”

“Good.” _Just enough of a bastard_. 

“What I actually wanted was to remind you of that night when you tried to tell me that you loved me, and rather messed it up.”

“You messed it up.”

“We _both_ messed up, my dear.” And then Aziraphale leaned in to kiss him.

It was a soft touch that lasted just long enough to leave Crowley satisfied while yearning for more. And while he was thinking about how there ought to be more, Aziraphale pulled back.

“No?” Crowley said, one eyebrow raised. “That’s all I get after six thousand years?”

“Shhh. I’m reflecting on how I feel about it.”

“Oh, hell, you would be.” Crowley knew how _he_ felt about it—full of a rushing cascade of headlong abandon, and about to drown in an ocean of yearning if his dear friend didn’t join him _at speed_ soon enough, and—

_Mmmph._ Aziraphale kissed him again, and this time he pressed harder, and deftly explored every possible angle and surface on, in, and around Crowley’s lips before pushing them open with an angelic tongue to dart in for a taste, and then he pulled away once more and said, “Is that how it’s supposed to go?”

Crowley blinked. “How would _I_ know?”

Aziraphale ran his tongue over his own lips. “Hm. Well, I haven’t the faintest idea, either. But I believe it was rather wonderful.”

“Really.”

“Yes.” Aziraphale looked ever so thoughtful. “Hm. Pleasant, too. And rather exciting. Oh, and do you always taste of slightly smoky cedar wood?”

“Er…not sure. What does that taste like?”

“Reminds me of a salmon dinner I had in Paris in 1996.”

“I taste like _fish?”_ The yearning for more romance was starting to fade.

“Don’t be ridiculous. It was cooked on cedar wood planks, that’s what I meant. _Smoky_. But in a good way.”

Crowley rolled his eyes. “You know, somehow I wonder if we’ll ever wind up on the same page.” He wrapped his arms around Aziraphale. “Angel, can you stop dithering and reflecting and searching for absurd comparisons and kiss me some more, please?”

“I rather think that I shall.”

And he did.

The stormy rain and the wind let up after a while, but Crowley had no intention of leaving. It was late. And there was a bed upstairs.

They had spent an hour or so lying embraced on the sofa, mostly simply holding each other, and gently massaging each other’s backs, and brushing fingers through each other’s hair, and only occasionally testing out another kiss, or a light caress of the lips on a cheek or a temple or a neck—wherever they wanted to see if the other would like it.

Because neither of them truly _knew_ what they liked until they tried something out that they’d seen or read or heard about when _humans_ expressed love, and they discovered one another, and learned one another, more and more as they went along.

“Too slow?” Crowley asked now and then. And “too fast?” he asked more than once. 

Aziraphale told him, and they worked out what they wanted, and what they needed, at the perfect tempo.

Then they moved upstairs to the bedroom, where they slipped into pyjamas before sliding beneath the sheets to find a comfortable way to rest, lightly embraced.

Aziraphale rested his head on Crowley’s shoulder. “In all that time on the sofa,” he whispered, “I forgot to mention that I do love you, my dear.”

“Hm.” So he had. “Not sure I said it, either.”

“No, you didn’t. I said it for you, if you’ll recall.”

“Ah. Sped right on past that.” Typical. Crowley sighed. “Slow me down sometimes, when I need it, will you?”

“I shall endeavor to accommodate your wishes.”

Still lingering in an earlier era. “How about, ‘I’ll try’?”

Aziraphale briefly tightened his embrace. “I shall try to do so.”

Crowley kissed his forehead. “I love you even when you’re _not_ keeping up with modern times.”

“I am glad to hear it. Although I am willing to move forward, it will most likely always be _slowly_.”

“I think you just made the most important move of all, Angel. Stay put here as long as you like.”

“Forever, perhaps?”

“Yes.” Crowley felt he could stop here forever. Where else did he need to run to? 

Absolutely nowhere at all. 


End file.
